Humans Dislike Cruelty To Robots

By Daniel Akst

Humans have empathy for robots, although apparently not as much as we do for other people.

That’s the finding of some new research using brain scans— functional magnetic-resonance imaging, to be exact—to assess people’s responses to affection or violence toward robots. Researchers in Germany recruited 14 volunteers and found that humans subjected to such scans while watching videos of affectionate behavior toward robots and toward people showed similar neural activation patterns in the brain’s limbic structures, suggesting similar emotional reactions in both instances.

Perhaps reassuringly, though, brain scans of people shown videos of abusive behavior were more empathetic when the victim was a human being than when the sufferer was a robot. The findings will be presented at the International Communication Association Conference in June. You can read more here.